THE FARMSTEAD

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Groundhog Day Again!

Today is Phil's Big Day!

On this day every year that chubby cheeked, grossly overweight rodent also known as "Punxatawney Phil", the most famous Groundhog ever, takes over the airways, the newspapers, the tv channels and even the blogs. Talk of him is happening at the morning prayer groups, the mall walking clubs and even my Facebook page this morning. He can even be seen doing his thing live on a web-cast!

It's the first thing I saw when I turned on the boob-tube this morning; an official looking guy, along with an enterage of other men all dressed in old fashioned suits complete with top hats and tails, holding up this fat rat. Then the one guy proudly reads a disturbing proclamation that one could say is just bad poetry, alerting the crowd of this rats decision as to stay outside of his hole or go back in if he sees his shadow. If he sees his shadow, we are stuck with 6 more weeks of Winter.

The whole world watched as he decided the fate of Winter-weary-sufferers everywhere and of course today he saw his shadow.

Of all the strange traditions that humans have, this has to be one of the strangest! Curious of how this whole groundhog thing got started, I did some digging by way of the internet and I discovered this web site www.groundhog.org which hosts the official Punxatawney Groundhog Club. It's a pretty neat site and even has stories about the adventures of Phil and visitors he has had over the years. It encourages travelers to come and see him and I don't know about you but I'm definitely considering spending my vacation next year, in the middle of Winter, visiting a well-fed rodent who lives in a tree stump!